Supervillain Girlfriend!

Part Two, Chapter Twenty One: The Power of Love and Friendship

Beatrice couldn’t think of what to do except to keep desperately trying to will her powers to return, despite the irrationality of it. Her mother watched with a satisfied smile, her arms crossed casually. She looked at her how one might look at a dog with a muzzle. Beatrice whipped back to face her in a frenzy, both furious and terrified, her breathing already beginning to edge towards hyperventilation.

“Calm down, Beatrice.” her mother said with a dismissive wave of her hand. “It’s only temporary. I would never take away my own daughter’s powers permanently.”

“Why did you do this to me?” Beatrice asked.

“I just needed to see what you had in your heart, and I got my answer to that.” She said, “You want to be stronger. You know you have the capacity to be better than the rest of them. Take over New Atlanta with me.”

“How did you gather all of that? I don’t want to help you do shit.” She said, “If anything, you should have interpreted that as me wanting to be stronger so I could beat your ass.”

“See, this is why I took your powers away. You need a while to calm down and then we can discuss this again.”

“Bullshit. I’m not discussing anything with you.”

“That’s fine. I’ll give you a little while to think about it.” She said, “Then we can try and have this talk again.”

“Whatever.”

“You should really spend this time thinking about what really is the best thing for you and Charlie.” her mother said. “The people you’ve been associating yourself with… they don’t have your best interest in mind. They’re just using you.”

Beatrice didn’t say anything, and in response her mother clapped her on the shoulder, and in just one second she found herself back in the room with Charlie. Her mother quickly teleported out without another word. 

Charlie hopped up from the ground and ran over to her.

“Beatrice! Are you okay? Did she hurt you?” She asked.

“Only my ego.” Beatrice said, "She took my powers away.”

“Did she inject you with that weird stuff too?” Charlie asked. 

“Yeah. Wait, she injected you with it too?”

“Yeah, I mean I wasn’t going to try and fight her.” Charlie said. “I’m not that stupid. I told her I didn’t even know for sure whether I was a mutant or not, but she said she couldn’t take any chances.”

Beatrice looked over Charlie and frowned.

“Do you feel any different?”

Charlie shrugged.

“I don’t think so. Does that mean anything?”

Beatrice looked away and sat down on the ground.

“I really don’t know.” she said. "It feels a lot different for me." 

Charlie opened her mouth to respond, and there was another puff of smoke. Her mother appeared again, TJ beside her. She let go of the grip she had on his arm and he jerked away from her, seemingly with a mixture of fear and disgust. Without a word, she was gone again. 

TJ seemed to take a moment to try and regain his composure before turning around to give her a smile and a wave. 

"Hey B." He said. 

Beatrice groaned and pressed the back of her head against the office wall.  

"So she got you too?" She asked.